Car remotes setting off southern bombs

By Post Reporters Authorities claim credit that their blocking of mobile phone signals has “forced” southern militant groups to switch to using remote car door keys to trigger bomb blasts.Authorities said yesterday that police are looking for 40 Daihatsu keyless remote entry devices, some of which they believe were used to set off recent explosions in the deep South.Militants who have in the past used mobile phones to set off bombs are being forced to change their detonation methods as security forces continue to block mobile phone signals while carrying out security missions, preventing them from carrying out their attacks.

Intelligence units under the police forward command in Yala have sent photographs of the Daihatsu-brand keyless remote entry devices to every police station in Songkhla, Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat.

Police found one of the Daihatsu keys near a blast site in Yala on April 13. It is thought the bomber dropped it while fleeing the scene. The key had been modified so its signal covered a longer distance, police said.

In Yala, more than 100 former supporters of militant groups reported themselves to authorities in Yaha district yesterday under a re-integration programme.

In Banang Sata district, Ban Tantip school was torched on Wednesday night.

On the same night in Pattani, a temporary shelter for shrimp workers was torched in Muang district, but no casualties were reported. An office of a local fishing union and a patrol boat were also set alight in tambon Tanyongpao in Nong Chik district.

No one was injured.

In other violence, two teenage girls were shot dead in Rueso district last night.

Phranai Suwanrath, director of the Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre, said the centre would focus on development of education to protect people vulnerable to indoctrination by southern insurgents.

Fourth Army commander Lt-Gen Viroj Buacharoon yesterday presided over the cremation service for Patcharaporn Bunmas, a Yala woman who was shot and then set ablaze by militants last week.